THE KIDDIE preview, Giru's new look, and a new discovery!

A ton of awesome releases are coming up in the next few weeks as well as later in the summer, so many exciting previews of what's to come are continuing to be released.  THE KIDDIE have put out a pv preview for their upcoming single 'elite STAR+'!  It looks really good and the song sounds interesting as well.  Their look for this release vaguely reminds me of the one for 'Sayonara Setsuna', probably because they seem to be using similar greys, darks, and whites paired with blue hues and animal print accents.  The single comes out July 8th...I can't wait to hear the full song! : )

In addition, girugamesh have posted new looks and the cd cover for their upcoming single 'BORDER', which is due for release August 5th.  They're going at a pretty fast pace with their releases, and once again have chosen to do a single (though they hadn't done so in ages before 'ALIVE', tending to release albums instead).  I suspect this is because of the long Crazy Crazy Crazy tour they finished earlier this year, since they probably wrote a good amount of material while on the road (they even started recording parts of 'ALIVE' during it).  The cover for 'BORDER' is unexpected but somehow just what one would expect from girugamesh...乾杯！ ^_^;　さすがだね（笑） But I have no idea what's up with all the random Americana in the background...I guess we'll have to wait for an interview with the guys to enlighten us on that one.
  
Anyway, the boys seem to be sticking to hoodies+jeans for now, but this time have opted for black zip-up style ones with white designs on either side of the chest and down one arm.  Nii and Shuu look almost the same as before except for some minor changes, but Satoshi's gotten rid of the perm and cut his hair short again...it really suits him and goes well with his face shape.  However, when I saw the new photos I was immediately wowed by how adorable Ryo looks!  His hair is also short but more conventionally styled (no braids or half up, half down styling), and it makes him look even younger and *gasp* slightly feminine when he poses like that in his solo photo, but it's cute and an interesting change. ^_^

girugamesh have been gradually shifting to a softer, more handsome, clean look for a while now.  If you look at their style over time they went from dark and scary, heavy make-up, contacts, and spiky dyed hair to limited eyeliner and natural all black hair, as well as transitioning from the formal black suits to casual wear.  Though they've shown it before, with this I believe they can definitely break the unfortunate (and untrue!) idea among some fans that girugamesh is an ugly band for good.

On completely different, more personal note, I made an amazing discovery today!  First off, I realized a little over a year ago that I'm mildly lactose intolerant which explained why I couldn't stand eating too much cream/dairy-based sauces and I hate drinking milk.  However, I've always been a big fan of cereal, and like to have it for breakfast, but as I ingested less and less milk I became less tolerant and more disgusted by it, so I tried to find a good alternative.  I used soy milk for a while, but found the beany aftertaste a bit unappetizing unless masked by chocolate flavour, but I didn't want to use that all the time since it has so much sugar and overpowers the cereal. 
So I was at a loss for some time while I searched for a good alternative, but milk substitutes are often hard to find and dominated by soy-based products.  There is rice milk, but that didn't sound much better than soy milk.  But, today for the first time I found almond milk at Whole Foods, and was overjoyed!  I'd always wanted to try it but could never get it anywhere before and thought it might be more expensive, but actually it was priced very similar to the cow's milk.  So, I bought a carton of the vanilla flavoured and tested it when I got home....it was incredibly delicious!  None of the heaviness of soy milk, and way smoother and more refreshing...plus, I actually like the faint taste of almonds.  The word あっさり perfectly describes it!  It was seriously like love at first taste...I'm totally hooked now. XD  I definitely recommend almond milk to anyone who's interested in a cow's milk substitute for whatever reason.
[Amusingly enough, even this does in a way relate to music...one of the first times I heard of almond milk was ages ago in some tv interview with Yoshiki where he said he doesn't drink cow's milk, he drinks almond milk! :D]